Saturday, September 29, 2012

Between IHOP and Neutrino 2012 Kyoto

I have been at IHOP Wheaton, several times. I like the place, and the simplicity involved, which allows me to go there, knowing exactly what to expect, so reading Friedman, I know what he means.

As Friedman writes, though, we have to go beyond the familiar. What Dr. Ishihara presented could change Astronomy. Finally we are getting a neutrino window to the Universe!

"The highest energy neutrino events observed ever!"

"We are into a very interesting era of neutrino astrophysics!"

I just finished watching six hours of lectures by Professor Alex Filippenko on Black Holes. We are living in very interesting times.

Here is my five cents worth of wisdom.

Neutrinos are weakly interacting particles, but as the energy goes up, they are more likely to interact. It stands to reason, that Astronomy will benefit from this new window of ultra high energy cosmic rays . Furthermore, since they interact less than charged particles, they point to their sources, making the Universe a huge laboratory, probed by these neutral particles.

Ishihara has positions, both at Chiba University in Japan, and the University of Wisconsin in the United States of America. Ice Cube, the collaboration he is a member of, built detectors at Antarctica. This is because it is not possible to observe in the Northern Hemisphere, what they just found out down there in Antarctica. This has to do with contamination coming from atmospheric neutrinos up North. Maybe nuclear reactors, I really have not studied the reasons they decided to build Ice Cube down South.

In any case, all humans are in this together, which is what Obama went to say at the United Nations meeting in New York City, this week.

Humanity has to think globally, otherwise we are not getting out of the bottleneck we are rapidly approaching.

If the Earth keeps heating up, maybe the ice will melt, and Ice Cube will have trouble finishing the job, of knowing where do the Highest Energy Cosmic Rays come from.